The Gallery: My Blog

Carole Finds Her Wings

4 words that took me about 4 hours to come up with on June 13th 2010 and that now mean more to me than I ever expected them to.

The day before, Liberty and I had been to Alt. Fiction in Derby. An Alternative Fiction Writing Conference where we picked up lots of writing hints and tips as well as geeked out at the presence of ‘real’ authors, bought lots of books and consumed a large amount of all-you-can-eat Chinese food in the lunch-break. It was our first dabble into such things and we loved the experience – coming away with renewed fire in our hearts toward our writing and the determination to follow some advice repeatedly thrown out during the day for those wanting to get published in the ‘real-world’: Get Online. Get A Blog. ‘Do’ Twitter.

And lo, the next day Carole Finds Her Wings and Liberty Falls Down were born. Budding new blogs with a focus on books and writing, we reviewed everything we read and posted about our own writing habits and thoughts.

That was all there was to it to begin with, books and writing. But slowly other things began to creep in. I did a few posts about Tori’s favourite books and about how I encouraged her to read and play with books right from the moment she was born. Then a few other posts began to appear – ones that had nothing to do with books or writing. Posts to do with my life as a Mummy and the learning curve I was on with my little girl and then through my second pregnancy and now my life as part of a family of four. I reviewed products as well as books and joined in with more and more memes as I began to find my way around the blogging world.

Now I dabble my feet in both the Mummy-Blog world and the Book-Blog world and I can barely remember what life used to be like before. Almost every day I read other people’s blogs and/or write a post on my own. I tweet with loads of people I would never have met if I hadn’t created my own little head-space on the internet. I share my ups and downs as a Mummy with other people going through the same. Some days it is the comments on here and the Tweets I receive that stop me from just sitting down in the middle of the floor and sobbing that I can’t do it anymore. They remind me that I’m not alone. That other people’s children have tantrums, mash banana into the curtains and have hospital check ups. They reassure me, help me see the funny side, commiserate with me and generally make me feel like a real person.

What started out as a Book-Blog designed to up my profile as a budding author has now turned into a place where I can just ‘be me’ a bit booky and a lot Mummy.

I get to write and I get to make friends and learn new things.

Starting this blog opened up a whole world that I didn’t even know existed and I wouldn’t want to leave it now for anything.

Thank you to everyone that comments, Tweets, lurks in the background and shares in my silly little ramblings. I love you all – even the random guy who had an argument with *everyone* on my Kids Hate Reading post – you all give me a little more faith in our wonky world and you regularly make me smile.

One day I hope Tori & Arthur will see all this and have a bit of a giggle  – once they’ve stopped being horrified that I shared their tantrums with the world, that is!